The NASA Astrophysics group has released a video simulation created by the Albert Einstein Institute in Germany that shows what happens when two neutron stars collide before coming together to create a gamma ray burst and form a black hole. When giant stars explode into a supernova, they leave behind a very dense compressed core that contains the mass of about one and half of our suns in a small sphere the size of an asteroid, which is called a neutron star.
The NASA Astrophysics group has released a video simulation created by the Albert Einstein Institute in Germany that shows what happens when two neutron stars collide before coming together to create a gamma ray burst and form a black hole.
When giant stars explode into a supernova, they leave behind a very dense compressed core that contains the mass of about one and half of our suns in a small sphere the size of an asteroid, which is called a neutron star.
They are so dense, that one cubic centimeter of a neutron star weighs more than Mount Everest.
The simulation shows a visual representation of what would happen if one neutron star of 1 point 4 times the mass of our sun collided with another neutron star with a solar mass of 1point 7.
In the beginning of the video the stars are 11 miles apart, and as they move closer to each other the gravity from the larger star destroys the smaller one, turning it into dust that spins in a spiral.
According to experts from the Harvard-Smithsonian Institute for Astrophysics, estimates show that up to 10 lunar masses of gold could be produced by a neutron star collision.
